da THIS EMOTION WAS A LITTLE E-BOOK / Tao Lin. 2006

sad things are beautiful only from a distance
therefore you just want to get away from them
from a distance of one hundred and thirty years
you can call the second half of someone’s life ‘mental breakdown and death’
i’m going to distance myself until the world is beautiful
sylvia plath is going distance herself from wry detachment
until she is accepted by the establishment
but if you forget how to be happy, uh,
therefore you cannot be happy anymore
and a pecan is a kind of nut that can make me cry
if i’m already sad about something else
but if i am really in love with things from a distance only
i’m going to get away from the first half of my life
if you are trying to get meaning from this poem
i am tired of living; if i really want to go back to school
therefore sylvia plath forgot how to create enormous distances
but i’m going to distance myself from this poem
and create an enormous sentence that will kill you
it’ll be the syntax that kills you, later,
when your brain reverses itself
to justify the subjunctive, or something, i don’t know,
i’ll just punch your nose bone into your brain
and that will be what kills you
in court i’ll argue it was the syntax
my lawyer will kill the judge
and that will distract the judge
my lawyer is not really accepted by the establishment
the anti-establishment can make me cry
if i am already tired of life
my lawyer is not allowed to feel sad
until he stops eating animals
i’m going to get away until someone thinks i’m beautiful
i’am finally in love with this poem
i’m going to memorize it, i guess